The popularity of location-based services, social networking sites that allow customers to check-in at a business, provides a great opportunity for your business. You can use these services to draw in new customers, reward your loyal customers, and connect with these customers on other social networking sites.

• Before You Start: You understand how people use cell phones to connect with the internet (mobile web). You have a business that relies on walk-in customers.
• Learning Level: 1 | Social Media Basics
• Article Last Updated:  Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Social Media Location-Based Services

There is a category of social media tools that allow people to use their smart phones and other mobile devices to check-in at different locations as they move around town. This might seem odd to you. You may wonder why people would want to do this. But people are doing this, and people often get quite competitive about who checks in the most often at places. And you can harness this phenomenon to get attention for your business and increase your sales.

Many of these check-in services incorporate a game aspect with social networking to entice your customers to use their services. For example, with Foursquare, people compete to become the mayor of your business, the person with the highest number of check-ins.

Proximity Marketing

People are drawn to these services because of they are a fun way to connect with friends. You can easily tap into the popularity of these services to help draw new customers to your business and encourage your existing customers to return. The challenge for your business is to become one of the desired meeting places for the people using these services.

All of these services allow you to see information about who is checking in at your business, some with a great deal of information about your customers. You can use this information to identify your tech-savvy loyal customers when they arrive at your door. You can also use it to connect with them on other social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. This allows you to tap into the power of proximity marketing, connecting with customers who are located near your business.

In addition, some of these check-in services help you with local promotions and can help you advertise to potential customers located in your neighborhood. Many businesses use these check-in services to provide discounts and rewards for their loyal customers. The cost of the reward is minimal compared to the positive word of mouth advertising your business gains not only through the specific check-in service, but often across Twitter and Facebook as people share their check-ins across multiple social networking sites.

Photo attribution:http://www.flickr.com/photos/dpstyles/ / CC BY 2.0

Your turn: Are you currently aware of the check-in services in your area? Do you participate in any business promotions with these services? Share you insights and experience.

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